Yes, I'm finally weaning my baby

I never thought I'd end up nursing A until she was pushing 16 months of age, but time flies with number two and Josh and I were just too damned lazy to make the effort (at 5:30am, mind you) to wean her. But with some encouragement from my sister, we're finally doing it. For the past two mornings, Josh has picked our little early riser out of her crib and marched her straight downstairs for breakfast! Hopefully she'll forget about my boobs sooner rather than later and I can stop worrying about her angrily sticking her hands down my shirt in public.

But it's not just us parents who are hitting the milestones. A's had a virtual word explosion in the last week. After months of Mama, cat, dog, mine, bye, night-night, agua and not much else, A's been surprising us with all kinds of pronouncements. Among her new words are mine, bird, house, car, vroom-vroom, bag, brush, juice, woof-woof, baby, banana and snack. And she's named her beloved pacifier "nah."

She's lucky she's cute

There is no better recipe for family discord than two irritated, sleep-deprived parents and an overtired, overwrought toddler.

Josh thought keeping A up a little later might encourage her to sleep in a little later. Seems logical, right? Well, his experiment backfired massively. Now, instead of hearing her call out at 5:50, she's screaming her head off at 4am. Nothing soothes her except joining us (read: my boobs) in bed. And frankly, I'd like to quit the early wakings and wean the kid in one fell swoop.

I'm tired.

I'm done.

So, per Dr Weissbluth, we're reversing course and moving her bedtime up tonight. And again when we turn our clocks back this weekend. If she can sleep until a halfway decent hour, Josh and I will be happy to get up with her and keep her from obsessing about what's under my shirt.

This baby formula is poison

Even though I've officially joined the ranks of those moms practicing "extended breastfeeding" (that is, if nursing once a day counts), I cringe every time I hear someone call formula "poison." It's not poison; while it isn't an exact replica of breastmilk, kids thrive on the stuff.

Except in China, where at least 6000 infants have been poisoned by melamine-laced baby formula. Remember the pet food scandal that caused kidney failure and killed thousands of dogs and cats? Same stuff.

That's why they call it a pacifier

I didn't use a pacifier with my first child. I'd read too many breastfeeding advocacy articles that claimed pacis could cause nipple confusion and make nursing more difficult. At one point I bought a pacifier and offered it to my fussy baby. She spit it out and we figured she didn't care for the thing.

So I became the human pacifier, having to lift my shirt or offer a freshly Purelled pinky finger whenever Z became inconsolable. Which was at least an hour a day. Not having the binky available to me, I fell into the bad habit of nursing her to sleep. Which meant that every night I'd have to oh-so-carefully pry my infant off of my breast and sneak her into her crib. Then I'd creep out of her room while carefully avoiding all the creaky floorboards for fear of waking up the baby and having to start over again. We'd even find ourselves standing over her crib as she sucked our pinky fingers numb.

So when my next-door neighbor Sharon (my primary source of parenting advice and a champion breast-feeder to boot) started singing the praises of the pacifier, I paid attention. She encouraged me to give my second child a paci right at the very beginning--in the hospital, preferably. She also stressed to me that you can't just offer the plug once and give up. Instead, she demonstrated her patented hold-in-the-paci and pat-the-bum trick for encouraging paci love in a newborn.

It took experimenting with a few brands, but now we've got a pacified baby on our hands. And let me tell you, it is so worth it. I can offer a paci when I'm done nursing and Baby A needs a little non-nutritive sucking. When we're in the car and she starts to fuss, even our 2-year-old can pop a paci in her baby sister's mouth. When she's hungry and I need to buy myself a couple of minutes before I can feed her, the pacifier keeps her happy. She doesn't usually need it to fall asleep, but she does like to suck on it as she is winding down toward a nap.

I know I'll have to take away the pacifier eventually (I hate seeing 3 year olds with a paci!), but I don't care. If baby's pacified, I'm happy.

Feeding on demand

My 2 week old daughter is on a feeding schedule. Not one I've imposed, mind you. Rather, she's ready to eat when I'm...
a) Sitting down to any meal, preferably a hot one
b) About to accomplish a task with my older daughter, be it giving her a bath, reading her bedtime stories (which can be done with a nursing baby), or taking her to daycare
c) Pulling onto the highway or stuck in traffic in a sketchy neighborhood

But when I hear her grunt and fuss in the middle of the night and I turn a light on and feel my boobs start to leak as I sneak over to her bassinet? Then she's fast asleep.